Down The Garden Path Podcast

In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne shares simple tips for planting garlic, from choosing the right cloves and preparing your soil to protecting your plants through winter.
Topics discussed:
How to Grow Garlic
Learn the basics of growing your own garlic, including when to plant it in the fall and how to select and prepare garlic cloves for planting.
Soil, Sunlight and Winter Protection
From choosing a sunny location to preparing well-draining soil, get practical tips for giving garlic the best chance of success. Joanne discusses proper planting depth, spacing, mulching and watering, while sharing her own experience with garlic that struggled because of competition from neighbouring plants.
The Benefits of Growing Your Own Garlic
Learn what to expect in spring, how to harvest garlic scapes and how to turn them into delicious homemade pesto.
Previous DTGP podcasts about planting garlic:
Growing Garlic
Garlic Gardening
Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?
Email your questions and comments to downthegardenpathpodcast@hotmail.com, or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca
Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.
Down the Garden Path Podcast
On Down the Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has designed beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible. 
In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.
Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

Is your garden soil giving your plants everything they need to thrive?
Last November, Joanne welcomed Amy Ellard-Gray to the podcast to explore why soil testing is one of the smartest steps you can take toward a healthier garden. Discover how understanding your soil can help you solve plant problems, avoid costly mistakes and take the guesswork out of gardening. 
About Amy
Amy runs The Hobby Homestead in suburban Guelph, where she cultivates over 100 varieties of native plants to support the local ecosystem. Through her YouTube channel, Instagram, website, and in-person consultations, she helps people design and troubleshoot their own food-growing spaces. Her mantra, "growing food in harmony with nature," guides everything she does, from tending soil life to welcoming wildlife into the garden.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Understanding Your Soil: Why Testing Matters: Amy and Joanne discuss why healthy gardens start with healthy soil and explore the benefits of professional soil testing.
Building Healthy Soil for Better Gardening Results: From choosing quality triple mix to using compost, mulch and organic matter, Joanne and Amy share practical ways to improve soil health. They also discuss raised beds, container gardening, crop rotation and how working with nature can create healthier, more productive gardens with less maintenance.
Growing More Food in Small Spaces: Amy explains how thoughtful planning, good soil and sustainable gardening practices can help homeowners grow more food, even in smaller yards, raised beds and containers.
Find The Hobby Homestead at www.thehobbyhomestead.com and on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Resources Mentioned in the Show:
Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden
Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?
Email your questions and comments to downthegardenpathpodcast@hotmail.com, or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca
Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.
Down the Garden Path Podcast
On Down the Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has designed beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible. 
In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.
Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

Have you ever wished you could save your favourite annuals instead of replacing them every spring? In this episode of Down the Garden Path, Joanne Shaw shares three ways to save your annuals, from bringing entire plants indoors to growing new plants from cuttings and storing dormant tubers. Learn which methods work best for popular plants like coleus, geraniums, begonias and million bells, along with practical tips for keeping them healthy through the winter. It's a great way to stretch your gardening budget and give some of your favourite plants a second season.
Topics discussed:
How to Save Your Annuals Over the Winter
Many annuals can survive the winter indoors and grow again next spring. Joanne explains how to bring plants inside, prepare them for dormancy and care for them through the colder months.
Three Methods for Overwintering Annuals
Learn how to save annuals by keeping the whole plant indoors, propagating new plants from cuttings or storing dormant tubers and bulbs. Discover which methods work best for plants such as coleus, geraniums, begonias, million bells and cigar plants.
Save Money and Grow More Plants Next Spring
Overwintering annuals can help reduce gardening costs while giving you more plants to enjoy or share. Get practical tips for managing light, watering, humidity and temperature.
Resources Mentioned in the Show:
Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden h3>Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?
Email your questions and comments to downthegardenpathpodcast@hotmail.com, or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca
Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.
Down the Garden Path Podcast
On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible. 
In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.
Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

Is October really the time to cut everything back and put the garden to bed? Not necessarily. In this episode, we've gathered some of Joanne's best tips for October in the garden. She shares why October can actually be one of the easiest months, with just a few simple tasks to focus on and plenty you can leave alone.
Here are some of the topics discussed in this episode:
Do less this fall: There's no need for a major fall cleanup. Most perennials can be left standing, leaf litter can remain, and spent plant material provides a winter habitat for beneficial insects.
Prepare for next year: October is a good time to assess the garden, take photos, identify gaps, water newly planted trees and shrubs deeply, mulch fallen leaves into the lawn, and plant garlic.
Bulbs and lawn care: Discover why you should buy spring bulbs now but wait until late October or November to plant them. Learn more about fall lawn care, including reseeding, leaving grass taller, fertilizing and dealing with weeds.
Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?
Email your questions and comments to downthegardenpathpodcast@hotmail.com, or connect via her website at down2earth.ca.
Are you a landscape or gardening expert?
We'd love to have you on the show! Click here to learn more. Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and
Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?
Email your questions and comments to downthegardenpathpodcast@hotmail.com, or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca
Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.
Down the Garden Path Podcast
On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible. 
In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.
Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.

Not sure what to do with your roses this fall? This week on Down the Garden Path, Joanne is joined by master gardener and author Cauleen Viscoff to talk about making rose care a little less intimidating.
They cover fall rose care, winter preparation, planting and moving roses, climbing roses, common pests and, of course, pruning. Cauleen also shares the story behind her upcoming book, Pruning Roses: From Mystery to Mastery, and why understanding how a rose grows is the key to knowing how to prune it.
Here are some of the topics discussed in this episode:
Fall Rose Care and Winter Preparation: Why fall is not the time for major pruning, how mulch can help, when winter protection is actually necessary, and why choosing hardy roses suited to your zone makes a big difference.
Choosing, Planting and Growing Roses Successfully: Learn more about hardy shrub roses, carpet roses, hybrid teas and climbing roses, including companion planting, moving roses in fall, proper watering and how to train climbing roses for better flowering.
Taking the Mystery Out of Rose Pruning: Cauleen explains how learning the different growth habits of roses makes pruning much easier and shares how her own sketches became the foundation for her upcoming book and pruning reference cards.
To learn more about Cauleen and her upcoming book, visit lush-gardens.com.
Have a topic you'd like Joanne to discuss?
Email your questions and comments to downthegardenpathpodcast@hotmail.com, or connect with Joanne on her website: down2earth.ca
Find Down the Garden Path on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube: @downthegardenpathpodcast.
Down the Garden Path Podcast
On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low-maintenance as possible. 
In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.
Don't forget to check out Down the Garden Path on your favourite podcast app and subscribe! You can now catch the podcast on YouTube.